A Death by Wounds: The first Lambert and Strange mystery

by J. D. Oswald

  For a few months after her death, people – mostly women – would deliver pies, cakes and stews on an almost daily basis. No longer: his stomach had taken to rumbling half way through the Eucharist. And so he had given Mamie’s recipe book to his char with a request that she begin the cake tradition again. Mrs Stevens, a harassed Welsh woman who lived in Hyde near the South Western station, had regarded the stained pages and pasted recipes with suspicion and a put-upon ‘I’ll see what I can do sir.’ Her first attempt had been a sponge cake hardly four inches high, sunken in the middle and sprinkled with coarse sugar. Mrs Stevens presented it with a resentful, ‘I’ve no time for baking at home sir.’ Creswell did not ask her to repeat the exercise. Instead he had persuaded the College cooks to add one more tin to the batch of fruit cakes baked on a Friday evening for the boys’ weekend teas. This morning, he was to collect it.

  He made his way through the corridor from Chamber Court and up the stairs leading to Grubbing Hall, the scholars scurrying past him trailing smells of porridge and fried bread.

  ‘Have you done Sasha’s toytime yet?’ one of the younger boys said.

  ‘No,’ his friend replied.

  ‘Shirkster.’

  They batted each other with their straw hats.

  ‘Strats are for heads, boys.’

  ‘Sorry sir.’

  His cake was waiting for him in the kitchen as arranged. It lived up to expectations, the sides glisteningly moist, the top crunchily uneven. The head cook looked on possessively.

  ‘I’ve been told there’s no better in Hampshire,’ she said.

  ‘I’ve no doubt.’ He handed over six pence, glancing around the near-empty Hall. ‘Has Miss Lambert been in this morning?’

  ‘Gone off early; took a slice of toast with her. Anyways, she don’t eat with the others.’

  ‘Did she say where she was going?’

  ‘Not that I know. Would you care to leave a message?’

  He noticed the woman’s smirk. ‘No thank you. I’ll take the cake now. Wrap it up please.’ He had been planning to leave a few extra pennies for her trouble but her familiar tone made him decide against it.

  ‘Yes Canon.’ She seemed cowed as if realising that she had only herself to blame for losing a tip. ‘I ‘ope you’re pleased with the cake?’

  ‘We’ll see.’

  As he descended the stairs, the young scholar’s words came back to him, ‘Have you done Sasha’s toytime?’ Sasha: short for Alexander. Sasha… He double-backed under the stairs and opened the door to the gloomy wood-panelled Chamber – the scholars’ common room - to be greeted by the smell of stale air and confined bodies. The older scholars were lounging on saggy sofas with blankets over their knees, surrounded by newspapers and magazines. Many wore scarves over their gowns and seemed to be competing for the most garish pattern in stripes or checks. A few of the cell-like compartments - toys in College parlance - were occupied by the more industrious students, heads bent over their desks. A prefect stood up languidly.

  ‘Can we be of some assistance Canon?’

  Creswell addressed the room. ‘Which of you can help me with some Russian translation?’

  ‘I can sir.’ An eager face peered out of the nearest toy. ‘Digby sir. I came top in the last test.’

  ‘Well then Digby…’ He went to stand in the toy and began to concoct what he hoped sounded like a feasible story. ‘I will soon be playing host to the Orthodox Bishop of…err…Kiev.’

  ‘I thought the Bolsheviks had abolished them sir?’

  ‘Well…err…he’s managed to escape.’

  ‘Gosh.’

  ‘Indeed. And your Russian Master is to be a guest at a dinner in the Bishop’s honour. A surprise for Mr Tokarev, you understand, so no telling.’

  ‘No sir.’

  ‘I wish to write his full name in Russian on the invitation. Spell it out would you.’

  The boy took Creswell’s pen and notebook and wrote laboriously, the tip of his tongue poking out of his mouth.

  Александр Иванович Василий Токарев

  ‘And this says Alexander Tokarev?’

  ‘Alexander Ivan Vasily Tokarev.’

  ‘He has another name doesn’t he? I forget.’

  ‘I think he only has two second names.’ Digby frowned. ‘Do you mean Sasha? That’s just a nickname.’

  ‘Ah I see. Sasha with an ‘S’?’

  ‘No, with a ‘C’, like our capital C.’

  That information was certainly worth a shilling.

  11

  Sunday 23rd November

  Philippa breakfasted early - tea, toast and a boiled egg on a tray in her room - and then packed her few belongings and went downstairs to settle her bill. She had almost an hour to spare, so suitcase in hand, she made her way through the archway on Westgate and down the wide path to the Minster’s west front. The massive door, surrounded by tiers of Norman dogtooth carving, was still firmly closed. An upside-down ‘V’ was incised into the wall beneath the left ‘pepper-pot’ tower, and she wondered, as she had done many times before, what sort of structure could have left such a mark. She began to walk clockwise around the cathedral. The honey-coloured stone, despite its black patina, still managed to glow in the weak morning sun. A chill gusty breeze swirled dry leaves around her ankles and seemed to suck at her as she rounded each corner. There was the stone bear atop the north transept roof; some locals swore that it was a monkey. And her favourite ram’s head gargoyle leering from a turret on the side of the Chapter House. She quickened her step as the path passed the entrance to Vicars’ Close - she had no desire to meet a clergyman emerging from his elegant Georgian residence – her route passing between the Cathedral’s south wall on the one side and the Great Hall on the other, the squat building the only part of the Archbishop’s palace still in one piece. She paused at a junction in the path parallel to the west front and then turned left towards the Song School. The choirboys had just begun to practice the morning’s anthem: How lovely are the messengers, they sang. Their voices were not as pure and note-perfect as those of Winchester boys, she had to admit, but there seemed to be more joy in them.

  She would have liked to walk across the park to take a look at her old family home, a rambling Victorian mansion near the Baptist Church. She saw in her mind her second floor bedroom overlooking the road. It had changed with her as she grew; first a toy strewn nursery with bars on the window, then a ribboned princess’s chamber, finally a dignified young lady’s room papered with muted candy-stripes. Her father’s consulting room took up nearly a quarter of the ground floor and she used to creep inside when no one was looking to poke about in the medical textbooks and examine the gleaming instruments and mysterious bottles. Her mother had spent much of her time in the rather dark parlour at the back of the house, cosy in winter and cool in the summer. It was where she kept her books, an eclectic mix of novels, plays, poetry collections, history tomes, science literature and travel writing. And it was here that Philippa had always sat to complete her school work under her mother’s watchful and sometimes critical eye. Her father in contrast took a kindly somewhat detached interest in her schooling. If asked, he would explain how to solve a difficult mathematical problem but would never check that she had got it right. On her fourteenth birthday, he allowed her to start helping in the consulting room. It was her job to select the right medical instrument, bandage or medicine, and to change the patients’ dressings. ‘I will only explain things once,’ he had said to her, ‘I expect you to remember.’ But it was her mother, Philippa realised now, who had been the more intelligent of the two. She had no outlet for her intelligence other than to push her only child to succeed, and she would sometimes fly into a rage for seemingly no reason or lock herself away in the parlour for hours. Philippa was glad that her mother could not see how her life had turned out.

  The house had been sold after her parents’ death and the proceeds held in trust by her uncle Bertram, her mother’s brother. He used pa
rt of the capital to pay for her upkeep with him in Cambridge and later for her nurse’s training. The rest he invested in stocks and shares. Bertram had never been a wealthy man. He spent his days in a Cambridge College immersed in the world of tropical diseases, surrounded by test tubes and petri dishes. Making money did not interest him; he had always seemed rather perplexed when he was paid for his work. Philippa’s legacy had been another matter. When Bertram turned his scientific mind to navigating the stock market, he found that he was rather good at it. By constant and scrupulous scrutiny, he managed to provide her with a small but regular income although it would never have occurred to him to invest his own money in the same way.

  There would have been just enough time to get to the house and back again before her appointment with Mr Abraham but Philippa could not risk the new owners of the house noticing her. They were friends of George’s, a fellow magistrate, his young wife and their brood of five. A couple of burly men passed by, bell ringers by the looks of them, shirt-sleeves rolled up at the ready. Sure enough, they headed along the Cathedral’s south side and through an unobtrusive door in the south transept wall. Then a woman’s figure emerged through a gap in the boundary hedge in the middle distance, and headed towards the cathedral’s west front. Philippa bowed her head, hoping that she had not been seen. When she looked up again, she saw that the woman had stopped, her face turned in Philippa’s direction. A voice called ‘Philippa!’ and the figure began to run. Then she recognised the woman’s face. ‘Lizzie,’ she whispered to herself.

  The woman galloped to a halt and grasped Philippa’s hands. Her hat had come loose and was dangling by a single pin from the back of her long blonde hair. ‘So it is you. I can’t believe it. I’m so glad. Where have you been? I’ve been so worried. I asked everyone. Even George.’ Lizzie paused and continued sternly, ‘Why didn’t you write? Are you back for good?’

  ‘No, I’m only here for a short visit,’ Philippa answered.

  ‘Oh.’ Lizzie let Philippa’s hands fall, resentful disappointment in her face. ‘So what are you doing here?’

  Philippa hesitated. Her childhood friend deserved the full story. She invited Lizzie to sit with her on a bench half-hidden by the spreading branches of an elm tree. Lizzie perched tense and upright on the edge of the lichened seat. She had become thinner in the years that Philippa had been away and there were grey streaks around her hairline.

  ‘Do you remember how we used to bring our dolls here?’ Philippa said.

  There was an awkward silence before Lizzie finally smiled. ‘This tree was Hansel and Gretel’s forest.’

  ‘Or Robin Hood’s greenwood sometimes. Didn’t we once hide some sweets in the roots as if they were buried treasure?’

  ‘That sweet shop’s closed now,’ Lizzie said vacantly, as she removed her gloves.

  Philippa noticed a wedding ring. ‘Lizzie, you’re married!’

  ‘Yes, a few months ago, to Daniel Beard,’ Lizzie said. ‘You remember him? He lived on Kirklington Road with his father. We’ve got a nice house on Queen Street now. He’s not perhaps what mother would have wanted but he’s kind.’

  ‘I’m so pleased for you. I wish I could have been there.’

  Lizzie examined her fingers. ‘I do too.’

  The cathedral bells began to chime, rapidly at first and then gradually slowing to full swing. The ringers were ‘ringing up’, raising the bells from their resting position to sit mouths upright on the wooden stay ready to ring in peal.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Lizzie asked again.

  ‘I’ve come to see the solicitors.’

  ‘About Edward?’

  ‘Yes, I…I’ve inherited some money.’

  Lizzie widened her eyes. ‘How much?’ she breathed.

  ‘I don’t know. Enough I expect.’

  Lizzie grinned. ‘Sir George won’t be pleased.’

  To her own surprise, Philippa burst into tears.

  ‘What is it?’ Lizzie placed a hand tentatively on Philippa’s arm.

  ‘You’re right about George,’ Philippa spluttered. ‘That’s why I had to leave.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  Philippa took a sobbing breath. ‘George threatened to kill me.’

  ‘What? Why?’

  ‘I found out something about him, something terrible.’

  ‘What was it?’

  ‘I can’t tell you. I don’t want you to know.’

  ‘But you have to tell me!’

  ‘I’ll only say that George is not as upstanding and law-abiding as he makes out.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Look, I really can’t…’

  Lizzie raised her hands in submission. ‘Alright, I give up. At least I know that you didn’t leave because of the rumours.’

  Philippa shook her head. ‘You didn’t believe them and that was enough for me.’

  ‘I wish I’d never taken you to that party,’ Lizzie said gloomily. ‘If it wasn’t for me, you might never have met Edward again.’

  ‘It’s not your fault. I thought Edward was what I needed. He seemed so charming and easy-going, so different from when we were children.’

  ‘Not to mention rich.’

  They both giggled guiltily.

  ‘Everyone told me how lucky I was – I’d never have to worry about money again,’ Philippa wiped her face with her hands. ‘Even Uncle thought my marriage was “opportune.” And it was a chance to come back here. Uncle was very kind but I never felt at home in Cambridge.’

  There was another pause. The ringers had progressed to ringing eight bells in rather uneven rounds, the treble and number two bell sounding almost on top of each other, a gap, and then the remaining bells in quick succession.

  ‘I was so naïve,’ Philippa began again. ‘When I think back now, I hardly recognise myself. I should have realised…’ It was such a relief to be able to say these things out loud, to someone who would not judge her. ‘I remember the day we returned from honeymoon. I was unpacking my trunk and I’d laid my nurse’s uniform on the bed to make more room in the wardrobe. “You won’t need that anymore,” Edward said. I said that I might but he told me not to be so stupid; the time for playing doctors and nurses was over. I didn’t realise it at the time but he was chipping away at everything that made me who I am, not because he cared but because he could.’

  ‘We were all taken in.’

  ‘I suppose so.’ Should she tell Lizzie about how Edward had started to stay away late into the evening or even overnight, saying that he had to deal with business on the family estate? She believed him at first, although looking back she should have known it to be a lie. Estate business bored him and he would go to great lengths to avoid it or put it off to another day, even occasionally palming the paperwork onto her. Then when he disappeared on her birthday, she demanded to know where he had been. That was the first time he hit her. No, it would not be fair to burden her friend – it was all in the past now. ‘What time is it?’ she asked.

  ‘Five to nine.’

  ‘I must go. I don’t want to be late.’ Philippa stared into Lizzie’s pale, anxious face and then flung her arms around her. ‘I’ll write,’ she promised.

  ‘You must.’

  As Philippa hurried away, she heard Lizzie call after her, ‘But where are you living? How can I find you?’ She did not turn back.

  Abraham & Dobell, Solicitors and Commissioners for Oaths occupied Prebend House, a smart Georgian-fronted townhouse positioned between the extensive grounds of Sacrista Prebend, and a rather dark and foul-smelling passageway leading to the Methodist chapel. The door was opened by Mr Abraham himself.

  ‘Come in, come in Mrs Elkins. Follow me and take a seat in here.’ He ushered her along a fusty corridor and into an office overlooking the street. She had to step carefully around precariously stacked cardboard files and remove one from the proffered chair before sitting down.

  ‘Tea? The pot’s fresh.’

  ‘Yes please.’
/>   ‘Would you mind doing the honours? My arm is a little shaky.’

  ‘Of course.’ Her hands were sweating and she wiped them surreptiously on her coat. As she poured the tea, Mr Abraham seated himself behind his desk. His chair was so low that he could hardly reach to the top of the piles of paper that surrounded him.

  ‘You have brought your birth certificate? Good. And your marriage certificate? Excellent. Now, let me find the file. I had it here earlier.’ He picked up a few files absently.

  Philippa sipped at her tea, silently urging him to hurry up.

  ‘Ah yes, here it is. Let me see…’ He turned the pages methodically.

  Her tea cup rattled in her hand, her body almost painfully tense. Eventually, he looked up.

  ‘A relatively simple matter as I thought, despite the deceased dying intestate. You may be aware that, before his death, your father-in-law transferred the Westwell Park estate into a number of trusts.’

  ‘No I didn’t know that.’

  ‘Sir George is a beneficiary of one of the trusts, Edward, his spouse and dependants beneficiaries of another. It was – how shall I put this – a device, for the reduction of death duties, but binding nonetheless, despite what the surviving members of the family may think. I also wonder if your late father-in-law had other reasons, but that’s by-the-by. You continue to be a beneficiary and so will receive the related income on an annual basis. There are other assets that you inherit outright. The value of these is approximately nine hundred pounds…’

  She drew breath; it was over five times her annual wage. Only a hundred pounds more and she could pay for her medical training - if somewhere would take her.

  ‘Minus our costs and expenses of course,’ Abraham added apologetically.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘We will apply for grant of letters of administration and then it should not be too long before you can take possession of the real estate.’

  ‘I wish to sell it.’